Here’s a thought that I’ve been having more and more lately: the smartphone isn’t just a computer, it’s the computer.

Somehow, unbelievably, humans have stumbled onto the computing paradigm that is going to define how we interact with the systems of the world relatively early in the technological timeline. Whether we call it a smartphone or not in the future and whether it shrinks or grows, the concept of a personal computer that contains what we are, digitally, and can act as the central ‘processor’ to a host of companion devices like desktop terminals and wearables is here to stay.

If you accept this premise, then it makes sense to imagine a world where there are various pieces of purpose built hardware orbiting around our ‘central processing unit’ that are all suited to various tasks. We walk up to a terminal and confirm our identity and it streams information from a device that links our identity, our place and our information together securely to let us immediately work.

Last week, Europe-based news website letemsvetemapplem.eu reported that Apple is preparing “Smart Bands” to add additional health tracking sensors to the current-generation Apple Watch. The article went on to say that Apple would release the bands starting next year instead of refreshing the Apple Watch’s core hardware, with speculation that Apple does not believe people will upgrade their Watches annually like iPhones. […]

The Apple Watch and its diagnostic port were actually designed with the possibility of bands with sensors launching in the future. These potential sensor bands could also integrate with the Apple Watch over Bluetooth, and Bluetooth-based health accessory connectivity is already an option in the Apple Watch’s Settings application […]. […]

We are told that the potential presence of “Smart Bands” will not deter Apple from annually upgrading the Apple Watch’s hardware.

First, it’s fascinating to imagine Apple considering a range of peripheral devices, essentially, connecting to Apple Watch. Including some that it might make. And if the Apple Watch gains cellular connectivity someday, the combination of the two (connected watch + peripherals) is interesting.

But back to this article: If we think of Apple Watch as a tool, adding additional modules or extensions of sorts is a plausible development of the product. On a smartphone or tablet, it’s somewhat easier to absorb new hardware into the “base”, but smartwatches offer less flexibility in that regard. It’s reasonable to assume they would have to still be aesthetically appealing, otherwise that defeats the purpose. Those who really the value additional health sensors may care less about aesthetics, but the device still has to appear reasonably pleasing to observers.

At this early point, I’d guess (the obvious, which is) that only some will opt for such smart bands, for reasons of need, fashion, and price. And smart bands, as Mark reports, won’t reduce the need for an annual update to the Apple Watch. Why? As a hybrid fashion/utility device, its industrial design needs to stay current, whatever that actually entails. And new designs increase the odds that first-time customers buy the watch. So, as Mark indicates, any “smart bands” aren’t likely to change the annual launch cadence.

The sources believe that Intel is unlikely to obtain modem chip orders for the upcoming iPhones. However, Intel could win orders for the 2017 iPhone models as Apple is searching for additional modem chip suppliers apart from Qualcomm, the sources noted.

Sparks the question: would an Intel baseband processor appear on the iPhone, Apple’s current core business, before it appears on any other product (e.g., iPad)?

A device which is 27″ to 50″ Curved Glass somewhat resembling a car windshield or a curved display

The whole surface area acts like an HUD (Heads Up Display)

The various sensors are built right into the Glass

Impossible to tell how accurate this is, but it is interesting. Dimensions (if accurate) don’t appear large enough for a car windshield. Unless it’s a small prototype. This sort of glass assembly is probably something Apple can’t build in-house (i.e., for a prototype). So, with a supplier involved, the odds of a leak are higher. “Leak” isn’t quite the right word, though, since it implies a certainty that this information is accurate.

Apple’s ResearchKit apps aren’t restricted to US users anymore. Starting today, people who live in Hong Kong and the UK will be able to access the MyHeart Counts app, which collects data on physical activity and cardiac risk factors for a heart disease study run by Stanford University.

This is the first ResearchKit app to get an international release. […] But that’s just the beginning; the researchers behind the study want to make MyHeart Counts the largest study of measured physical activity and cardiovascular health to date.

My hunch is that the entities that care the most about ResearchKit aren’t mobile device makers. And, conversely, that mobile device makers don’t care much about this. (By “care”, I mean in terms of talent, tools, goals, investment.) Of course, most device makers depend on Android. So, it’s understandable; their options are limited. (Unless… they invest in experiments that use ResearchKit.) And so Apple moves forward, learning, quietly.

I have some travel coming up, and within seconds—literally—of asking Cortana some questions, I was able to check the weather forecast for my destination, find a handful of restaurants around my hotel, and find out what kind of facilities are offered there. I also quickly found a couple of specific recipes online, search for some images, launched some applications, and added a handful of reminders to my calendar. I even had Cortana remind me to get up and walk around every couple of hours, so I wasn’t glued to my office chair for too long each day.

I’m looking forward to trying it out. The first system-wide assistant on a large-scale OS.

The tiny infrared detector is effectively a smarter, more connected pedestrian traffic sensor: it tells apps how many people are entering or leaving a building at any moment, giving you a good sense of whether that restaurant is packed or blissfully empty.

“I don’t tweet, mainly because I’ve noticed that some of the other people with jobs like mine have either ended up doing all promotional tweets, which is boring, or writing something half-thought-out that would be better used in a more considered piece of writing,” he told Business Insider.

Google Inc.’s life sciences group has created a health-tracking wristband that could be used in clinical trials and drug tests, giving researchers or physicians minute-by-minute data on how patients are faring.

The experimental device, developed within the company’s Google X research division, can measure pulse, heart rhythm and skin temperature, and also environmental information like light exposure and noise levels. It won’t be marketed as a consumer device, said Andy Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Google.

My take on this is that Google intends to:

1. Start by creating a device that tracks health and environment data *very* accurately (by having to meet clinical trial requirements). Then improve the size, design, power, and other attributes. The next version will be even better for clinical trials. The iteration after that? – suitable for consumers (size, power, etc.).

2. Use insights to improve Android Wear (the OS, or a related reference architecture), even if its aim isn’t to achieve clinical-trial performance on those devices. Very notably, Nest devices could also benefit.

3. In the meantime, Google will learn a lot about biometric and environmental sensors, related data, and related applications for that data.

The heart rate sensor in Apple Watch uses what is known as photoplethysmography. This technology, while difficult to pronounce, is based on a very simple fact: Blood is red because it reflects red light and absorbs green light. Apple Watch uses green LED lights paired with light‑sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through your wrist at any given moment. When your heart beats, the blood flow in your wrist — and the green light absorption — is greater. Between beats, it’s less. By flashing its LED lights hundreds of times per second, Apple Watch can calculate the number of times the heart beats each minute — your heart rate.

INVENTION

It’s too early to tell how successful Apple Watch will be. But what is clear is this: Apple continues to invent. It was striking, in fact, to realize — as Tim Cook, Kevin Lynch, and Jony Ive presented it – the amount of R&D that Apple has invested into making Apple Watch.

In terms of hardware, for instance, Apple developed unique or highly-customized technology in no less than seven areas. And these aren’t small achievements. They’re not feats of squeezing a camera into a watch or forms of specsmanship. They’re in important areas: related to CPU, interface, sensors, and very fundamental mechanics. The software achievements are equally impressive, spanning a range of 15 different problems Apple had to solve. All of these – hardware and software – are tough, fundamental advances aimed squarely at helping users achieve their goals.

I won’t re-explain each major technology area; others have written and said plenty. Instead, here are several of the high-order points, in my view:

1. The S1. Very customized. As if Apple said “a new class of device deserves a new class of computer”. This degree of customization is the right call – because it affects everything that’s supposed to make a smartwatch appealing and valuable: size, functionality, performance, battery life, and upgradeability. I don’t claim 100% certainty, but I’d venture to say Apple’s competitors don’t take this aspect as seriously. If you have more color, please email me.

2. Beyond conventional constraints. Apple didn’t allow a small display to dictate the terms of user interaction. It envisioned, and delivered, the Digital Crown and Force Touch.

3. The Digital Crown. It’s a zig toward the tactile when the industry has zagged so far toward the digital. (And it’s not for the sake of contrarianism.) Very cool solution. If an Apple car had 10x more of this physical interface ingenuity, that would be amazing.

Also, just as the mouse, scroll wheel, and multi-touch were central to the identity of the Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone, the digital crown really is central to the identity of the Apple Watch. If you had to pinch, or weren’t able to zoom in and out, it would be an entirely different experience.

4. Force Touch and Taptic Engine. These take the most widespread mobile interface, the touchscreen, and make it meaningfully richer. Pretty good achievement. And yes, to say the obvious: some form of Force Touch and Taptic Engine will land on the iPad and the iPhone. Like any new input approach, expect these to be used, over-used, and fine-tuned over time.

5. Digital Touch (the ability to share a tap, a sketch, or a heartbeat). Apple could have taken the best-fit smartphone interactions (e.g., notification vibrations), transferred them to the watch, and called it a day. But they didn’t. Someone stepped back and thought “The fact that this product is touching you *means* something; there may be value in a new kind of communication.” First-rate thinking.

6. Sketch. Time will tell if this perspective matters, but it’s as if the Sketch aspect of Digital Touch combines the best of Instagram (pictures) with Twitter (brevity) and Snapchat (the moment). And speed, a fourth attribute, was inherent in the demo examples.

7. The design, including the bands. The budget and attention here likely rivals the entire investment that any of Apple’s competitors put into their first-generation programs. Perhaps by a multiple. Ditto with the “making of” videos that Apple showed.

8. Heart rate sensor. The difficulty is in getting accurate readings. Let’s see how well Apple Watch performs, and how it addresses the challenges.

9. The incumbents. There is SO MUCH here that traditional watchmakers can’t touch. In short, everything in blue in the chart above. Why? Because of everything else in all the other charts in this article.

10. This is what it takes. This – all this new hardware and all this new software – is what it takes to launch a new category, and to have a shot at success. (And this doesn’t even get into the product management, marketing, and point-of-sale excellence that’s also required.)

A user interface tailored to the form. A communication method tailored to the context. A design that is careful and considerate, rather than a cost-reduced imitation of design. And the custom hardware, software, and manufacturing that optimizes each of these.

The creation of Apple products required “invention after invention after invention that you would never be conscious of, but that was necessary to do something that was new.”

A DIFFERENT FOCUS

How is Apple able to do this, while competing smartwatches (e.g., Samsung Gear models) deliver features like an “IR blaster”? I don’t think the answer is “complicated”, but it is a multi-part answer, best saved for later. (Many people have a perspective and, by helping my former company compete against Apple, I have mine.) For now, here’s a short version.

At the highest level, it has to do with company identity. Identity reflects the values of the founder(s), and it determines whether a company chooses to prioritize the new or the familiar, and whether it values quality or quantity. In turn, this drives resource focus: where a company allocates its resources – people, processes, technology.

Apple allocates more resources than other mobile companies (call them “component integrators”) in two key areas: Product Direction and Technology Development. The “vision thing” and the “invention thing”. It chooses new problems to solve for consumers, and it creates the technology to do so. That’s the short answer to “how is Apple able to do this?”

In contrast, most other mobile device makers either don’t invent, or they do so very sporadically. If you peered into each and counted the number of leaders, engineers, product managers, assets, and hours devoted to i) identifying new jobs to be done and ii) creating new technology to solve them, you might be surprised. Mostly, they purchase standard, complex components and work hard to integrate them into products.

To be clear, component integrators are important companies. They serve a valuable role: they help many of us get effective, reliable, reasonably-priced products. And the engineers at these companies are some of the best in the world. Component integration that is high quality, fast to market, and cost-effective is quite difficult.

But integration is not invention. As a company of invention, Apple conducts both broader and deeper exploration, it demonstrates the ability to take on higher risk, and it often reaps the resulting greater reward.

A DIFFERENT OUTCOME

Invention and integration produce different outcomes for the companies that specialize in either. Generally speaking, the differences are in performance and impact.

Performance. By shaping their technologies, companies that invent increase their ability to shape their products. Invention enables differentiation. Differentiation – or doing valuable jobs in a better way — enables healthy pricing, and healthy profit. That’s why, in smartphones for instance, the vast majority (~ 99%) of the operating profits belong to the companies that invent the most: Apple and Samsung. Invention isn’t the *only* driver behind their performance, but it’s a major driver. The component integrators, in contrast, have been disrupted. (See Nokia, BlackBerry, Motorola, and HTC.) And Xiaomi? Yes, selling a product for minimal profit will move a lot of units, but the company has yet to make a significant profit.

Impact. Component integrators, by virtue of (mostly) competing on price, help spread technology across the world. That’s important and valuable. But inventing companies also do this. They don’t do it via rock-bottom prices; they do it by offering functionality that’s both powerful and inspirational. Moreover, inventing companies do something that component integrators can’t: they shape the future, they push frontiers. They introduce the hardware, software, apps, or services that previously didn’t exist or weren’t polished enough for mass consumption. They create the NEW. And if it’s good enough, soon others make something similar.

Component integrators bring new advances to market, too (BlackBerry: the keyboard; Samsung: the phablet; Nokia: PureView camera; Motorola: Moto Voice). It’s just that companies that invent are able do so repeatedly and more frequently.

That’s what makes Apple – one of many technology inventors – so fascinating: watching it perform well, stumble at times, and watching it move mobile forward.